UW Basketball: On a Roll (for real this time)

“Thomas, shake, crossover, stepbaaack, yaaaaaaaaaaah! At the buzzer! YOUNG ZEKE and Washington, wins it! On a last second J! Coooold Blooded! Whoooh!”

– Gus Johnson

Before we get to the game, how in the hell does Gus Johnson keep doing this? He’s on hand for so many insane finishes. It’s awesome. He is by far the best play-by-play guy in all of sports. I’m just so happy that UW got the exposure on national TV and that he was the one to be here to call the game. Great stuff.

Here’s what I know about UW Basketball.

They have an extremely gutty leader in Isaiah Thomas. His shot was falling for two of their three games (8-13, 2-11, 10-16) and he was making good decisions with the ball (assists: 11, 12, 7) while he was forced—due to injury (Gaddy), indiscretion (Overton), and inexperience (Hosley)—to play 123 minutes out of 125 in three-straight days at the most important position on the floor. Oh, and he hit a high-degree-of difficulty shot at the buzzer, in overtime, against a very good team to propel his team to the Pac-10-Title. He was, in a word, remarkable.

They have two freshman (Redshirt and True—sounds like a buddy cop TV show coming to TNT in the Fall) who don’t fear anything and who played with more ability and poise than the two seniors who shrunk from the moment in this tournament. Justin Holiday, one of my favorite players on this team, failed to make a three-point shot in the three games (nine attempts) and shot 8-21 overall (but he did grab 10, 6, and 7 rebounds respectively). MBA, a guy whose game makes me madder than hell was good against WSU (7-11, 7 rebounds), pathetic against Oregon (2-9, 7 rebounds), and embarrassingly bad (save for a stretch in the second half) against Arizona (3-10, 3 rebounds). He also had exactly 1 assist over three games, which is customary for him.

Greenlight: 19-36 (6-17, 35%, from 3) 46 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists (doesn’t it seem like he could average like 60% from the field if he would stop taking “bad”–too early in the shot clock, off-balance—shots, I’m amazed looking at his numbers, he’s over 50% from the field as it is… very surprising).

It’s becoming very clear that these two young bucks have a very bright future in the Pac 10. While Wilcox does not have much of a game (at the moment) outside of hitting spot-up threes, he has the ability to diversify. He’s got to improve his ballhandling to make him a more deadly offensive player. Incidentally, how Sean Miller must have been apoplectic when Parrom doubled Thomas, leaving Wilcox (only the best shooter on the floor) wide open for a game-tying three—just an unbelievable brain fart and stroke of good luck for UW.

This season is unfolding almost exactly like last season, whereupon I viewed them as incredibly flawed and lost and then marched to the Sweet Sixteen. That team went on a run late in the pre-NCAA Tournament season and ended up surprising even themselves. The same thing could happen to this team. Most certainly if Thomas, Wilcox, and Greenlight keep playing well, and it seems clear to me that these guys won’t shy away from the spotlight (incidentally, if they can get anything out of the seniors mentioned above, then they have a nice chance to do some damage).

Last night, after the game, I tweeted my prediction that Washington would receive a 7 seed today. It just sounds right. This is a team that didn’t look like it had any business even being in the NCAA Tournament and now they are on a bit of a roll (the good kind this time).

But I stand by my criticisms of the coaching staff in terms of strategy, but in terms of motivation, I’ll give it up. It was clear the team was motivated and “ready” to play. These guys didn’t lay down even when Klay Thompson was giving them the business (by the way, I need to give credit where credit is due, I cannot believe Romar went against his instincts and fouled when up three with under 10 seconds to play. He has said time and time again that he is against doing it, philosophically, but now that it worked in their favor, I suspect he’ll do it from now on, great work by the coaching staff there, and Jim Shaw specifically for reminding Romar of the UConn game…). Or when a far inferior Oregon team kept it way too close for the majority of the game. And they showed their toughness against a very good Arizona team and overcame a rash of foul trouble to pull out one of the most memorable victories in school history.

The coaching staff absolutely deserves credit for that. But I’ll point to one instance that typifies my complaints. Washington calls a timeout, presumably to set up a play, out of the timeout UW dribbles around aimlessly and eventually humps up a shot that would have been a shot-clock violation had Arizona not rebounded the ball. I thought that maybe I’d see some sort of set play that would result in at least an attempt at a good shot. Now, perhaps Arizona defended everything too well (quite possible), but they looked lost, and that’s pretty shaky for just coming out of a timeout.

My big complaint with the UW program is that they are merely “good” but I don’t know if they can ever be “elite” because those teams have a combination of great ballplayers and great, strategic/tactical coaches. Motivation and confidence can get you so far, you can look like a great team or even an elite team for stretches because sometimes basketball just has that kind of flow and because great players can take over games when there are only nine other guys on the floor, but when a good team runs up against an elite team—oh, I don’t know, say in the NCAA Tournament—then the weaknesses of a merely good team are exposed (cannot get points when it absolutely needs to because the other team has figured them out and has locked them down), and the merely good team goes home. No shame in that, just disappointment.

So, congratulations to the UW program and all of its fans. I will not poo-poo Washington’s victory because it was impressive and I am very interested to see just where they land and how the bracket shapes up.